Two Coaches & a Coffee
With nearly 60years of professional experience between them across the world in Premier League, International Rugby, AFL and consulting in a plethora of other sports and industries; two old bulls of the performance, injury prevention, and rehabilitation world: Darren Burgess and Jason Weber catch up over a brew and discuss all things Sports Performance.
Two Coaches & a Coffee
Season 2, Episode 25
Unlock the secrets of elite athletic performance as we journey through the world of Australian sports. We promise you'll gain valuable insights into the rigorous training regimens that keep athletes at the top of their game. Featuring a captivating conversation with Damien Marsh, head of strength and conditioning for the Wallabies, we compare the grueling demands faced by rugby and rugby league players. Get a firsthand account of the intense local AFL rivalry between Port Adelaide and another local team, as well as the broader challenges teams face as they aim for the finals.
Join us as we explore the nuances of conditioning and training specificity essential for athletes across various sports. From the prioritization of repeated power in European teams to the role of tempo work in building aerobic conditioning, our discussion covers it all. Discover how insufficient preseason preparation impacted a US college football team and delve into the concept of "earning the right" in training, especially for younger athletes rising through the ranks. Plus, we share our strategies and hopes for upcoming football matchups against formidable opponents like Port Adelaide and Sydney, aiming to turn the tables and create some unforgettable upsets.
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G'day and welcome to Two Coaches and a Coffee. Darren, great to have you back. We're two in a row. We're breaking records here.
Speaker 2:On a roll, mate On a roll. Good to see you and good to have the thousands of listeners out there. There are thousands. We're hearing more and more we think there might be 10, on a roll. Good to see you and good to have the thousands of listeners out there.
Speaker 1:There are thousands. We're hearing more and more. We think there might be 10, to be honest, we're in double figures now, from what I'm hearing, we've got some.
Speaker 2:You pretty much know how my week's gone. We had a win so that makes the week good. And we're going into showdown, which, for those not in Australia or not even in Adelaide, who don't really care it's the two-team town in a small AFL mad city and we're playing against Port, who are coming second and we're 15th.
Speaker 1:It's the big rivalry game For everybody overseas. There's rivalry games in the EPL, there's rivalry games in NFL, college football. Everyone has rivalry games. So that's what this weekend is. But the AFL is fraught at the moment because it's so tight leading into finals. There are a number of teams not unlike Darren's in position which have a real possibility of upsetting the apple cart for some teams who are on the cusp. There are teams within our top eight at the moment who could very well lose this weekend and be out on their butts.
Speaker 2:It's that tight for another Exciting for the league, not so exciting for teams that aren't involved.
Speaker 1:Copy never is. What about you?
Speaker 2:being the entrepreneur of life. What have you been up to?
Speaker 1:well. I guess the the benefit of what my job at the moment affords me is the opportunity to speak to lots of people in lots of different um industries, at different levels and get into some pretty solid conversations that maybe, once you're in it, you don't have the opportunity or maybe the perspective. You know the forest through the trees type thing. So this week I had a great opportunity to spend some time with my mate Darren on the call here. But Damien Marsh, who's now the head of strength and conditioning for the Wallabies, in truth be told you know he is that role. He really deserved that role. 20 years ago when I left the Wallaby job he was the best qualified for it. But unfortunately that's the way it goes and because I'm out of it I can say that. But Damien's a great journeyman, done a lot of stuff in rugby, a real thinker. But anyway, we had time to discuss this week, got in, had a couple of coffees and too many coffees really and got into just discussing. Like, clearly the Wallabies have had their massive challenges over recent times. We've been through that, but obviously last well, obviously for people who are overseas. South Africa played the Wallabies last weekend and we got done by 30 odd points. But it was quite clear, uh, that they're just their physicality across the board contact, speed, um, repeatability, everything was just being was really put under that blowtorch, and so Damian and I talked about that.
Speaker 1:But then in the rest of the week I've been doing some work in rugby league and obviously rugby league in Australia is a really dominant sport. And again, for those overseas, particularly in the US or other parts of Europe, that don't understand rugby league, rugby league's a relatively simple game. It's not fraught with a lot of rules, but it's high speed and it's played by very big, strong men, so there's a great balance of mass speed and then obviously everyone goes. It's just aerobic, we're aerobic animals. But what struck me with one conversation was that about repeat power, and I've been through this a lot. We used to talk about it a lot when I was in rugby. I'm not entirely sure it's getting through at the moment in rugby, because we seem to be good for one or two efforts, and that's the conversation. But the league guys can keep coming back.
Speaker 1:Now one of my league compatriots was telling me he had some of his players go and train in a rugby program a pro rugby program in Australia because of logistics. So let's say this was a Sydney team. This guy went back home to melbourne and was in melbourne and given we've only got one team down there, it's not the melbourne storm, but he's gone and trained in rugby league, in rugby union, and then come back to his league team and literally the report was these guys don't train enough. I felt like I had to keep doing more. And when you layer that on top of a couple of other experiences, keep doing more. And when you layer that on top of a couple of other experiences. So in 2000 and the end of 2002 into 2003 in Australia I was with the Wallabies head of performance, all that stuff. But we brought in three big rugby league players Wendell Saylor, Lottie Takiri and Matt's I can't think of his name offhand.
Speaker 2:Anyway, it'll come to me in a second.
Speaker 1:It'll come to me in a second Cronulla Rugby League.
Speaker 2:But they came in. Yeah, I know that I can see his face.
Speaker 1:I said it three times yesterday. I still it's out of my head. It'll come to me. But these three guys were ballpark indestructible. They could train harder and faster than anybody. They literally didn't get injured At that time not everybody got injured, but they were great physical beasts. So I layered that and then I'm hearing what I'm hearing from Damien saying clearly our repeat efforts aren't enough and clearly Africa, south Africa, have made some big improvements in that area. And I remember these guys coming off the field periodically back in this was 20 years ago, saying we'd finished training with the Wallabies and they'd go well, we need to go and do more. And they'd go and do more conditioning because they just had that higher work capacity. Now you've got to say, given the torrid history that Rugby Australia have had over the last 10, 15 years, that there is a basis for this in their physical preparation. It just seems to be the case.
Speaker 2:No, is it training intensity? Obviously, the ability to repeat efforts from a technical point of view is, you know, that's training, repeat anaerobic capacity, which requires aerobic capacity as well as anaerobic capacity as well as anaerobic capacity. So are they doing more aerobic work to fuel the anaerobic system or are they simply trying more intensely and therefore, as a by-product of that, that's what they're getting.
Speaker 1:So logistically like. So, talking to Damien, he's saying that the trend is for a lot of players to number one, if you make the wallabies, you kind of it becomes a 12-month cycle. So if I started in the Wallabies, they go and play in the European summer. So they'll go up there October, november, they come back, they have December off and then pretty much January they're in a short run-up to start Super Rugby. So their general preparation period is very, very poor, so they just keep going.
Speaker 1:The other conversation that was deep was the fact that a lot of the there's guys trying to be too cute and be too specific, so we're not doing any general work. That's one thing. But also then that a lot of the athletes at a younger level so particularly in rugby league, the guys who are playing 15s, 16s sorry, 15s, 17s, 19s, 20s in particular are getting really hard games every year like 15s, 16s, 17s, representative games at a high level, which is not happening in rugby. So then you get guys graduating out of schoolboy rugby, going to provincial level, and then they're not much better, whereas you've got kids going 17s, 19s, 20s in rugby league, playing 15s, 16s, 17s, real hard representative games every year and then graduating to rugby league. So the gist of it is I think there is some push towards not enough generalised work, too much maximum force.
Speaker 1:That was the other discussion and I'm not pointing fingers at this, this is just discussion points. But how much maximum force do you need? You've got a guy who can squat 350 but can only do one running effort. When he's got to back up three, four, you know team puts together. I don't even know what the averages are these days, but four or five phases back to back. You've got a bit of work to do. You've got a bit of work to do.
Speaker 2:So how do you solve the problem? We're problem solvers here, jason. How do you solve the problem when you're at Marshy's level? You know, I'm going to say I think you're dead right, mate.
Speaker 1:So and again, marshy and I weren't talking from any. We're just as a couple of mates, no different to this. I said I wonder if we're missing the boat. Do we need to go back to our rugby league brethren and say look, what are you doing? What are you doing, what are the leading teams doing there? Because they've got big dudes, they've got guys running around at 115 kilos and they're getting gang tackled, one versus three and four guys at a time.
Speaker 1:Rugby union that doesn't tend to happen and there are differences, I know. But one of the stats that came out yesterday the guy said I wrote it down was the ball in play data. Just let me flip my notes real quickly. Ball in play data in rugby union is something like 30, I'm going to go with 37 minutes, whereas rugby league is like 52. Now, I might be pulled up on that statistic, but I'm pretty sure. No, no, there it is. So this was Pathways game Ball in play in rugby 33 minutes, ball in play in rugby league 57 minutes. So they're doing a lot more Now.
Speaker 1:They can substitute, rotate players in and out, but it's not that great, it's not like ice hockey. They're doing a lot more Now they can substitute, rotate players in and out, but it's not that great. It's not like ice hockey. They're doing a fair bit. But I would say there is no question that every rugby league player I've been exposed to are better aerobically and I don't think it's because they go out and run 10K time trials. I think they're doing moderate level repeat work over and over and over and over and over again. One of their favourites is the old Malcolm. You know, 25 metres on your tummy up go. And that brings in another thing postural fitness, the ability to. It's an important one.
Speaker 2:There's a bit of debate going on in some soccer circles and you have your longevity podcast, jason, which I know you're a huge fan of with your likes of Peter Atiyah and who's dealing with a different population to what we are. But some of that has transferred into soccer, european Association Football, a European Association football, where they are reverting back to aerobic-type running, so let's call it Zone 2, zone 3 running in order to punish anaerobic spores and so your postural fitness. I'll extend that to if you're doing 1,000 metres of high-speed running, do you just get that going straight up and down? You know, as in 100 metre excuse my phone going off there in 100 metre repeats. But that has nothing to do with getting 1,000 metres of high-speed during a game where you're up and down and you change your direction and then you've got to go and then you're wrestling and then you're up and down. So it's an interesting debate.
Speaker 1:Well, I definitely know, mate. I know for a fact, when you look at some of the European teams, a lot of their conditioning off, like off field, might not necessarily be heavy, heavy weights, but it would be heavy like repeat. So, whatever it might be, jumps with a trap bar and you go jump, jump, jump like complexes, jump, jump, jump this. That that have a short break. Go back again, because there's not only the repeat power thing is not only yes, there's yes, we've got the anaerobicis and the metabolic feeder, but you've got to have the contractile strength to generate the force repeatedly right. And so there is a conditioning effect to being able to operate at a high fraction of your maximum force generating capacity, exactly as there is in, as you would, for a max VO2. Because what we don't necessarily like, you look at all the classic.
Speaker 1:I grew up in my industry reading all the Russian textbooks. I've got them all out in the back in my you know all the Russian textbooks, but they're all predicated on coaching athletes to be one repetition maximums. That's not what field sport athletes necessarily are. You know we could be our 1RMs and I used to see this all the time. You'd have a 1RM guy. Let's say, just take bench press. Like you might have a 1RM bench press that's only 140, 150, something like that, but you can multiple rep do high percentage of that at 110, 115, because you're not necessarily trained to do the ones. Now, nfl is a bit different, but NFL still do the classic 220-pound 100-kilo bench press for as many as you can do, and they've got guys repping those things out and their sport is repeat power.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's just an interesting. I always prefer to be domain-specific, but there's certainly plenty of people who've been successful in AFL, in soccer, who've gone energy system training, first build the engine and then get that engine to express on the field. So it's an interesting way of doing things.
Speaker 1:I don't yeah.
Speaker 2:I agree with you mate. I think you've got to go back to fundamentals.
Speaker 1:You've got to go back to fundamentals, but it may not mean that you've got to do a 10K run. Now I had another call this morning with one of my US college football teams a very, very big team and they've just transitioned through a lot of stuff. A lot of players have changed, coaching staff have changed. They've just transitioned through a lot of stuff. A lot of players have changed, coaching staff have changed. They've just gone into camp and the guy that I work with there from a speed sync perspective is just saying, hey, like we just haven't done enough work. He said I've come from other programs and the amount of work we've done going into camp is just not enough. Now he's not saying not enough aerobic work, we just haven't done enough. Now he's not saying not enough aerobic work, we just haven't done enough. And that enough.
Speaker 1:What he was describing was the whole of the program. We haven't done enough reps on the field. We haven't done enough speed work. We haven't done enough everything, enough tempo work. And this was a team too who are terrible tempo runners. So the old Charlie Francis I'm a big Derek Hansen fan and Charlie Francis all that. I started my gig with them this team that I'm describing, cannot do tempo, speed work, and that's where you build up that basic aerobic conditioning in a slightly twist towards a speed-orientated component. But they're terrible at it. Therefore they don't do it and now they're going into camp. They're in week two of camp, 15 days out from a game, and they're overloaded to the eyeballs because their staff haven't pushed them.
Speaker 2:It's interesting I know we're running out of time here, but there's no doubt that doing some of that tempo work is great for building up, you know, tendons and tissue integrity, elasticity and stiffness and all of that stuff. But can you get that without doing it and going more into specific, specific drills? I'm not sure you can. I think there is a earning the right. It's just how long that earning the right goes for what it consists of, whether you can feed in that earning the right into your skills training I think it also depends on the eight like what athletes you've got.
Speaker 1:If you've got conditioned athletes that have like. If we go back to the soccer examples we've talked about over and over again, where you get the south americans that play 10 games a week when they're kids, that's what they're used to. They've got that conditioning background, whether you like it or not, whether it was derived from sports science or just from you know what happens in favelas if you've got kids who are chronically under condition. Now, if I bring this back to where we started from one of the arguments why we're having injuries in scrummaging in rugby in Australia and I'm just reporting this, I'm not arguing one way or the other but that is that the kids don't scrummage enough when they're younger they're coming through the ranks. They don't scrummage enough per year so that when they do make the jump to super rugby it's a big jump. And when you change kids' positions which does happen in rugby, you get the kids that can't make it as a back rower, but they're big enough to become props. They haven't conditioned themselves enough.
Speaker 1:So you've got an AFL guy and you know this like who's a strong midfielder. He goes away, he has his summer break, but he's still got himself fit. He comes back. Yeah, he probably needs a couple of weeks of that GPP type work and you can then say, yeah, he'll pick it up in training because we know where he's at. A kid can't do that. A kid, as you said, hasn't earned the right. And I think that again, if I go back to that college team, they've got a young list and so when you're talking about a young list coming in, they just haven't done enough of the work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay, interesting, jason. Interesting, a bit more technical than our usual philosophical discussions, but given that the clock's ticking on 29 minutes, that's well and truly over our deadline of about 25.
Speaker 1:I think, mate, I think I liked your thing, mate. We're trying to solve problems Like that's the point.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And I think, when you look, unfortunately, at Australian rugby, it's a problem that is going to be solved by multiple professionals, but our group would be one of them, is going to be solved by multiple professionals, but our group would be one of them, and I think it's a good. I think it's good for practitioners to get out of their own head and say, well, if I had, if I was presented with that problem, how would I solve it? Like, what decision would I make? Because ultimately, someday that's going to happen. You're going to change gigs and someone's going to say, right, yep, you know, everybody wants to. Going to happen You're going to change gigs and someone's going to say right, Yep you know everybody wants to be in charge.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:You know everyone wants to be a leader, but what decisions are you going to make when you're there?
Speaker 2:Well, the other thing, which I'll finish with, because it might be a bit of a conversation next week. I'm talking to people who, because we've got two jobs on yeah, two jobs out for 10 at the moment yeah and um yeah, I'll spit it out in a minute and, uh, candidates are calling from all over the world, which is great. We've got some fantastic candidates and I'm sure we'll get some good people in there. But there's a lot of people who are talking about, um, uh, what sort of leadership will I have in there and how can I develop my leadership? And and I'm thinking no, that's great and people are ambitious and I love that. But I understand there's some X's and O's to get right first. Oh, I understand.
Speaker 2:And there's probably an assumption that we've got those X's and O's right and you know we'll develop your staff and your leadership as well. But X's and O's will get you through the door and then you can work on your leadership then um x's and o's will get you through the door and then you can work on your leadership.
Speaker 1:Then you know what in my tenure in the military work that I do outside of here, outside of speed, sick is, um. One of the things that's really important is nobody likes a leader who hasn't actually done shit. You've got to have experience. So when you start talking about we're going to go physiology and we're saying, well, there's start talking about we're going to go physiology and we're saying, well, there's aerobic base, we're actually getting the technical arguments that then says, well, we can lead the program. It's very hard to lead something if you don't know what you're doing in any capacity.
Speaker 1:So I would always say and we can finish on this mate, if you're going to be a leader, have a job Like you've got to have a role, you've got to have a special. I mean, I know that's what you bring. You bring that experience from being a conditioning guy who worked in rehab, who did the job. You go up the chain.
Speaker 1:But people who want to be leaders who don't actually know what they're doing is fraught with danger, with danger yeah and I know I could actually name one or two people whose names are out there in the public who I know are a fact, they are lemons, but they are very, very big One's on the tip of my tongue. Now I'm going to have to push stop record because I'm going to say his name and I could get in trouble. So I'm not going to be nasty, that's not my nature. But, darren, it's been a pleasure. I really wish you the best for the last couple of games. I hope there's something in there. I hope you upset somebody who have you got, I've got Port Adelaide.
Speaker 2:Who are coming?
Speaker 1:for second.
Speaker 2:You could upset Port, followed by Sydney, who are coming first, so I can finish. Yeah, both away.
Speaker 1:You're on the barbecue there, that's hot. There we go.
Speaker 2:That's okay. It's a good challenge. Yeah, but we'll update the listeners who, I'm sure, are fascinated to see how we go Riveted.
Speaker 1:You have a good weekend. All right, mate, we will speak again, you too. Ciao, ciao.